


Lessons from Faerie Realms

by Merfilly



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2163387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things just run in the family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susan takes a guess about her granddaughter

"You're very quiet, Sarah," Susan said as her granddaughter stared out into the rainy day. "Your father said that you have been going through some troubling times of late."

"I didn't think he had noticed," Sarah admitted, but she brought her attention around. "I'm sorry, Gran. I've been trying to focus better, so I can get into the school I want."

"Oh? This from my little one who used to promise she'd run away to join the theater?"

Sarah flushed darkly at that reminder. "I don't wish to be my mother."

"Your mother," Susan said, a little more sharply than she intended, "was a good woman with a free heart. She had the courage to chase her dream, but forgot to make allowances for those it would hurt in the doing."

Sarah bit at her lip, not certain of that anymore. It seemed so selfish, just as she had been in her recent trials against the Goblin King. "I should still focus. Maybe if I do, if I practice harder, I can go to Juilliard, be a serious performer."

Susan shook her head. "Is it what you want, Sarah? Are you certain you want to be the disciplined actress rather than the fiery passionate player you have been in every play?"

"Is there no middle road?" Sarah asked seriously.

Susan considered, taking longer to answer than Sarah had expected.

"Like your mother, I chased my dreams. They took me away from my family too, long before I lost them. I thought there was a way to keep what we had and what I wanted in one basket. By the time they were taken from me forever, I realized that sometimes there cannot be a middle ground and be true to oneself." She let out a long sigh. "Do I wish I had made different choices? Yes. Do I regret where my life carried me? No."

Sarah nodded slowly. "I don't want the regrets. I looked at who I was, looked at the fantasy I had cast around my life, and… I don't want to be that person. I don't want to become someone who is caught up only in me, looking all around at everyone and thing as mere toys within my life." She didn't realize how deeply emotional her voice was growing. "I can't be at the center of a labyrinth, unreachable by anyone that refuses to play by my rules!"

The elderly lady tipped her head, eyes going slightly narrow. There was something in her words, something that coaxed at her own research over the years concerning the stranger realms not of Earth. It had been hard, but with her exile from Narnia, she had wanted to know if there were other places.

"Sarah… did you try to wish away the baby?" she asked softly. At Sarah's sudden pale complexion, she had her answer. "Oh, my dear child. Do not let the lessons of the Faerie break your spirit in this world. Those lessons are harsh, but you can keep your dreams and merely temper them with reasonable ideas. Do you hear me on this?"

Sarah slowly nodded, still unsure how her grandmother had known. "How?"

Susan smiled, a little sadly, before she shook her head. "Not a menacing fae lord, I assure you. Merely a place where I was queen with my brothers and sister, dear one." She was not yet ready to speak of it, but the look on Sarah's face coaxed her past that reluctance. "It all began with Lucy, sweet little Lu…."


	2. Lessons Learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the revelations between Susan and Sarah, as well as another talk.

Susan listened to the rain outside for a long time, half-dreaming of lands long lost to her. Talking with Sarah had stirred up the memories once more, both of her adventures and of her brothers, her dear sister, and all of their friends there.

"I lived a whole life there, the first time. Knew what it was to rule, to be courted, to love. I'd begun to consider who I would place as my prince to rule at my side. And when I returned, learning that all we'd done had become no more than myth and fable, I found a prince. He was a fair man, once he was enlightened to the lies he'd known all of his life, but in time, I had to return to this world once more."

She let her voice fade away, while Sarah shifted on the couch, curious, but unwilling to press. At last, Susan turned and looked over the young lady, seeing that the touch of a faerie realm had aged the child so close to true womanhood. "I turned my back on the wondrous, Sarah. I chose to walk completely away from it, and lost more than I had even dreamed of when I lost my family. I once thought that it was this selfishness that caused me to lose my place in Aslan's heart." Susan then smiled, a quiet expression as she held Sarah's eyes. "But how, Sarah, can anyone lose the heart of an eternal like that? I may not have returned to Narnia yet, but perhaps Aslan's purpose for me was not yet done, and so I was not there for the accident that whisked them all away."

Sarah considered that a long moment. "I think your adventure was far more noble than mine, Gran," she said. "I nearly lost Toby, all because I was tired of caring for him, of being invisible to dad, of not… not getting my own way more," she admitted. "It was a child's fantasy, with knights and monsters and a forbidding king as the villain."

"And yet it caused you to doubt your very dreams," Susan said. "Perhaps the nobility is merely a perspective. I waged war to win my throne, and countless beings of Narnia died in that battle, in the one to grant Caspian his true throne. Where is the nobility in that?"

Sarah's brow twisted in confusion at her grandmother. "Are you saying that coming home was wrong? Or that I should have taken his power from him, made myself queen?"

Susan laughed softly. "My dear, from your half of the tales shared today, I'd say you did take his power as firmly as we defeated the White Witch. But as to ruling, I would say it is overrated. However, you found your way to the realms not of Man. There may be far more to that step than was obvious when you wished away an ungrateful, snotty, screaming brat." Susan's voice grew callous with every word, and Sarah's ire rose to match the hard tones.

"He is my brother, and I never should have wished him away when he needs the same love I —" Sarah's voice broke off as she realized her grandmother was smiling slyly at her. "—do… the lesson didn't end with beating him," she breathed.

"No, Sarah; you learned the truth of friendship and family, I think. Matters I needed a better grounding in." Susan patted her granddaughter's hand. "Be strong, Sarah, for you may be called on for your friends' needs next time, rather than for your own sake."

Sarah nodded slowly. "Friendship, like family, is a gift and a responsibility," she murmured as she considered her adventures in a new light.

* * *

"Why do you find all of the intelligent ones?!" the incensed, and currently very weakened Goblin King demanded as he stood in the Wood.

The Lion regarded him with stately intent. "I do believe the most recent attempt of yours is far more intelligent than you are giving her credit for, Elfling."

The Goblin King scowled, disdaining his heritage, for he had made a great realm in his own name! "This Susan of yours, she is growing quite elderly," he mused.

Aslan roared in his direction, the physical force of it pushing the Goblin Kin back against a tree. "You will do nothing to my Emissary among the Sons and Daughters of Man," he commanded. "Do not test my patience, Jareth, for you are at your weakest, and the force that was once the White Witch is steadily encroaching your lands. You will need this Daughter, and the Son, to resist her, and that will not happen if you take away the guiding presence of Susan."

Jareth sighed, but the Lion was right.

He always was.


End file.
